


Day 10 - As the stars are known to the night

by Amemait



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: GFY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-10
Updated: 2013-07-10
Packaged: 2017-12-18 08:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/877479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amemait/pseuds/Amemait
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Remembrance Day story, with slight apologies to Laurence Binyon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Day 10 - As the stars are known to the night

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Не тронет их время — ему неподвластны они](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5859208) by [Die_Glocke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Die_Glocke/pseuds/Die_Glocke), [WTF_TBS](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_TBS/pseuds/WTF_TBS)



Tim could remember pancakes most of all. Warm and fluffy, the way his grandmother used to make them for Sunday breakfast, all tasty and delicious, and he'd cover them in butter and homemade raspberry jam before gobbling it all up.

There were no pancakes in the trenches, and Sunday breakfast was essentially the same as it was every other day, for they had run out of jam long ago. It was cold and the damp seemed to seep into his clothes, and he had to remind himself each and every single damn day that he was one of the lucky ones, he could have been shot or exploded or gassed - or worse. Drowning backwards while others walked on the planks above you, doing their best not to fall in themselves, not making eye-contact as they walked past your body, treating you like a corpse already because their commanding officers had told them to (and you couldn't get out of the clinging mud and climbing water, because the very pack you depended on, the very clothes you wore, they stopped you from moving, prevented your escape).

A far worse thing than death, surely.

Tim ran a thumb over the Fob Watch, feeling the metal grooves under his fingers and listening for the slight, faint hum of ever present now/past/yet-to-be that he could still pick up sometimes, most often the days he knew that something was wrong and that strange things were afoot. There hadn't been anything from it recently, save that one moment when it had sang in the trenches, and he'd saved both himself and his former classmate.

There were pancakes when he got home, that one single day when he'd been decorated for participation in the war. Decorated for bravery, for carrying his comrades to safety and for being foolhardy enough to go back out and rescue more. He'd almost been tempted to throw them in the drawer and never look at them again, but they were part of the uniform, he really did have to wear them.

There were no pancakes during rationing, because egg powder made them lousy and they just could not cook them right. And then when his Francine died, Tim simply couldn't face the idea of cooking pancakes without her (him flipping them while she watched and applauded, her eyes alight and sparkling as she mixed up more batter; they would always have enough left over for lunch and dinner, but they didn't care).

The day he saw John Smith again (he was ancient and forever and he had not aged a day, and the girl who was with him and he'd forgotten her name, she had grown not old), the nursing home had made pancakes that morning, for after the Dawn Service.

The stars John Smith had seen and been to, they would be bright when he was dust, they would move in marches, across the great plain that made up time and space the way he experienced it. Those stars though, they'd been bright for him that night (when the Fob Watch sang and gave a warning meant for his ears), and even if they weren't going to be around until the end of time, somehow, somehow Tim (time) knew that John Smith (the Doctor) would be there, right at the end.

But for now old Timothy Latimer, veteran of the Great War, just sat and cried into his breakfast, for all the young friends he had lost felt nothing like glory at all.


End file.
